Ski Goggles in Mosquitia

The trip out to Tipi, where we have our first project area, is often made on the back of a pickup truck. If the road is dry enough and no other unpredictable things happen, the journey needn’t take much more than four hours. During fire season, you see a thick band of smoke along the horizon, and we’ve sometimes had to drive straight through dense smoke, at times close to open flames.

Brigades members of Truksinasta

Every year the savanna burns, sometimes more than once. The fires leave behind scorched, blackened soil that seems lifeless. Wildlife suffers badly from these recurring burns. But the real loss—the one that creates a vicious cycle—is the erasure of natural regeneration. Pines that are otherwise adapted to wildfires can’t cope when it burns too often, and seedlings never get the chance to survive until they’re big enough to withstand a fire.

The will to change didn’t come from an office far away. It was a wish that grew among the people who make their homes here.

Together with researchers from Uppsala University, we work with a co-creation process. It starts with getting to know the place and the people, then building tools—like photography, map-drawing, and other ways of forming a shared picture of challenges and opportunities. But perhaps the most important thing has simply been spending a lot of time together. We’ve turned problems over and over, listened to lived experience, and let solutions grow out of dialogue. It isn’t a quick path, but it’s one that leads to decisions more people have helped shape.

One of the first challenges was how to organize firefighting. There was already a group in the village who’d received some training through an earlier aid project. The immediate idea was to let them form our fire brigades.

But an objection grew in the villages. In a place where jobs are scarce, why should only a few get that opportunity? The question led to an insight: if responsibility for the forest is shared, then the chance to protect it must be shared too.

Out of that discussion came a completely different idea. Instead of fixed brigades, we decided to rotate the crew each week. That way the whole village became engaged. Responsibility was shared—and so was the income. It wasn’t the most efficient solution on paper, but in practice it proved superior. It built something stronger than firebreaks—it built community. It also created a new problem: we needed much more protective equipment.

Getting good protective goggles in Honduras was difficult. Smoke from the fires is acrid and harms the eyes. We often hear how people develop eye infections because of it. On one occasion, when I was traveling from Sweden, I packed a few pairs of old ski goggles. They were an instant hit. They protected not only against smoke, but also against swirling dust and the harsh sun.

Ski goggles out in the field

We mentioned this to Ramundberget Alpina back home in Sweden. Shortly afterwards, a whole box of ski goggles arrived—much nicer than the ones I’d brought. It was a simple gesture, a slightly unexpected alliance between Härjedalen and La Mosquitia, that makes a concrete difference for the people on the front line.

We hope this story inspires more spontaneous collaborations—so if you have a fun idea, get in touch! In closing, a big thank you to Ramundberget and our colleagues in La Mosquitia.

When fire approaches the village, the whole community comes together.